


Sleeping Beauty

by sewn



Category: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, F/M, Magic, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Obsession, Parent-Child Relationship, Parent/Child Incest, Sexual Experimentation, the tags make this sound rougher than it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewn/pseuds/sewn
Summary: Young Mareth begins to visit Allanon while he is in the Druid Sleep, becoming more and more attached and attracted to her father.
Relationships: Allanon/Mareth (Shannara)
Kudos: 9





	Sleeping Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened because I was talking with swingrlm about the idea that Allanon told Pyria about the Druid Sleep and left her with more knowledge about the magic... and it kinda snowballed from there.

**1.**

It has been two years since her mother brought her to the cave.

Mareth hesitates on the threshold. Perhaps she can’t enter anymore. Perhaps she shouldn’t. She still remembers the tingling, somewhat unpleasant feeling from the first time, as a child clutching her mother’s hand. Pyria had seemed just as unsure, though she had told her that magic would let them in, that only Mareth would be able to open the heavy door. So far, Mareth’s bursts of power had seemed to scare her mom, but now, there was this look in her eye, one that Mareth couldn’t decipher then. Her mother wanted something she couldn’t get, in a kind of way she hadn’t thought adults did.

But now she’s older, and she gets it. She wants it too. To see his face.

Her father’s face.

**2.**

She can keep it secret for months. When Pyria finds out that she has been to the mountain and the Druid cave a few more times, on her short trips that she is allowed to take now, she gets angry. Not the kind of snapping that happened when Mareth first created her illusions: she tries to hide it, explaining to Mareth tightly that in no circumstances is she to go there again. He will not wake; they only went to say goodbye. So Mareth would know. It is a grave, Pyria says, and she needs to stay away from magic, and this -- this is the opposite of that.

This only confirms to Mareth that it is true. She feels it in her veins and skin. The magic, growing.

I shouldn’t have taken you, her mother says, some months later, when they argue about it again. And again, and again, until Mareth packs her bags with no intention of coming back.

**3.**

She’s used to the slowly rising temperature of the cave now. The first time she was here, it was cold enough it made her every muscle tremble and the tips of her hair curl and frost with her steaming breath. Now she knows that chill will let up as she wanders around, touching the runes on the walls. She didn’t look at these things either, back then, only led to the granite slab and made to look at the face of this resting stranger.

At that age, she had never missed him. Sure, she had questions, but her mother’s answers were enough for her. She had a father in an abstract way; he was on an important mission. Could be he never came back. It’s alright to be sad, Pyria had said. But Mareth wasn’t. She had her mom, didn’t she?

He looked old, then. Dead, though Mareth could feel his heart beat, very slowly, as she leaned over him to place a dry kiss on his forehead -- his skin was’t that of a dead animal either, and he didn’t smell of rot.

That was the first thing she did when she returned here, sat by his resting place, sensing his heart and his skin. She felt this thing, like a hum, resonate in herself, like her heart was slowing down, too, something aligning her with his being. It was only after she was starting to feel hot and clammy in her woollen clothes that she noticed she’d been simply looking at him for a long while, and the cave had warmed itself up to accommodate her body. She shed some clothes, heart picking up speed, wondering if she’d broken the spell, eyes fixed on his face, the drops of melting frost in his eyelashes.

What if he woke up? Had she hurt him? Or saved him?

She knows now she doesn’t have that kind of power. The air and his body alongside it might have warmed up, but it did nothing to his immobile state. Mareth kept by him, wiped away the droplets from his cool face. He didn’t look dead to her anymore, and she could feel his chest rise and fall, very slowly, as she rested her hand on it.

She does so now, after the room is warm and she can take off her coat and gloves. This is her favorite thing: inspecting his face, a routine now, checking it over for any marks. There never are any, but she feels good doing it. Looking after him. She very gently tips his head to the side, to get a glimpse of his neck -- she hasn’t dared touch the runes there yet, but they fascinate her. She’s seen some in her mother’s books, but can’t tell which these are. He has some scars on his body elsewhere, faded, like real people do; she checks these, too, fingertips hovering half an inch above his damp skin. She is mindful of the hilt of a nonexistent sword that he is holding in his hands.

She stays one night, like usual. Goes through the chest in the corner, another routine -- she’d felt bad trespassing, but now these artifacts are like hers, too -- checking they are all here. She talks to him, of news, of what she has done in the months since she last came up here. Perhaps it is silly to imagine he’d hear her. She rolls open her blankets for the night. When she wakes she is freezing again and knows it’s time to go.

**4.**

Mareth wishes she could see the color of his eyes. She traces the lines on his brow, the shape of his eyebrows, then along his cheekbone. He has some lines here, but he isn’t as old as she first thought. His eyes are big, she can tell, his lashes long, delicate. His short beard is softer than she thought, his lips fuller. She strokes the round shell of his ear. She hasn’t touched any other full-humans like this, dead or alive.

She’s kissed a boy, once, now; it wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but not exciting either, not any more than training with that same boy, dancing around and wrestling him to the ground. Perhaps she even prefers that part. She hasn’t met anyone else she’d like to try it with.

The following thought makes her shiver, though the cave is warm enough that she has stripped down to her undershirt.

Just like under her fingertips, his skin is soft, and it invites Mareth to swipe her tongue along his upper lip. He doesn’t respond (though some part of her never stops wondering if anything she does might make him) but he doesn’t resist, either, and that is enough to excite her to do it again. Her own mouth is warm and slick enough to make the kisses soft and sliding; she hunts for the right angle, brings her fingers up to turn his head as she wishes, then down his neck and shoulder.

She remembers a fairytale from her childhood about a prince who fell asleep and a princess who had to defeat a dragon and climb a tower to wake him up with a True Love’s Kiss.

But he is no prince and she isn’t sure if she loves him. She just likes him. His peaceful face and soft, cool skin, the way it feels when she kisses his face all over.

**5.**

The sword clangs as it hits the floor. She freezes: she only meant to look at it and then move it aside. It was easy to peel his fingers from around it, but the empty hilt of a Druid sword is heavier than she thought, as if the blade was there, though hidden. She picks it up with trepidation, but it looks pristine, its pommel shining, delicate carvings barely visible even to her elven eye. She wondered if the magic that shimmers in the air whenever she’s close to Allanon might be the sword’s doing, but despite how fine it is, it feels ordinary, a disappointment after everything she learned from her mom, and she abandons it after satisfying her curiosity.

His hands are now free for her to inspect. After considering it, she climbs on the slab, sits astride him.

The cloth covering him is rough on her inner thighs, but it is easiest this way. She gathers both of his hands in hers and lifts them up. His hands, like everything in him, are clearly strong, and her fingers can’t reach around his wrists. His nails don’t grow, just like his hair doesn’t while he sleeps. He doesn’t bruise, either -- she knows this, because she tried it, on a wild instinct, bit his skin right under a collar bone, letting go instantly and heart in her throat. Her teeth left marks that quickly faded, but she knows she bit hard enough that blood should have blossomed dark under his skin. It’s like this place heals him.

Perhaps it heals her too. She hasn’t thought much of it, but she always feels better after leaving, lighter.

She runs her thumb over his knuckles, then follows with her mouth. She drops his other hand to better hold on to his wrist, thumb on his palm, then licks between middle and forefinger and sucks them between her lips. This is much easier than kissing his mouth, trying to get a proper taste of him. His skin doesn’t taste of much of anything, but she expects it now, anticipating the vibration of magic instead. She must be right: the closer she is to him, the stronger it is, surrounding her. No magical artifacts needed.

Mareth kisses down his inner arm. Gets on her elbows, covering him. They are almost similarly undressed. It’s so warm here. Her own skin is almost as damp with the humid air. She lowers herself carefully. His body can take her weight easily. It’s new and exciting kissing his mouth in this position. Perhaps it isn’t true love, but it has to be damn near close to it.

**6.**

She visits Wing Hove after a while, missing her mom, regretting the way she left.

Pyria looks stricken the first she sees Mareth, then runs up to embrace her. Relief floods Mareth, followed by tears. They spend the night rebuilding the connection, but very carefully, dancing around it, neither of them apologizes or brings up the reason for her running away.

“I can’t make you do what I want,” is all Pyria says. “I only wish you didn’t do so.”

She sees it in her mother’s poise: she doesn’t regret forbidding her, only the way she did it. And curiously, finds that same contradiction inside herself, like a mirror. It’s possible to disagree. To brush aside even things this big. And it’s possible to feel good even if she lies by omission, letting her mom think it’s over.

**7.**

He’s even heavier than she thought, dead meat, essentially. She knows she can do this, though, aided by her magic. She’s learned to control it with more precision over the last months, practicing with sticks and stones, then picking up a fight to test it. Perhaps it is unfair to the Rover who ends up knocked off her feet before Mareth lays a hand on her.

She concentrates now while using all her physical strength. She is victorious: after a lot of effort, she has turned her father on his stomach instead, making sure his face and other sensitive places aren’t straight against the cool stone.

She’s long wanted to see his runes. There are so many, not just the ones on the back of his head and neck, but a whole cascade of them down his shoulders and spine, each one unique. Mareth forgets her apprehension and propriety as her fingers yearn to learn them all, covering them with her palms and then her mouth. Her lips tingle; her whole body does. She licks up the valley of his spine, chasing that sensation. The remaining layers of cloth are an obstacle between them, and almost without thinking, she undoes her undergarments so she can press her wholly bare chest against his back, nose rubbing against his shoulder.

She only realizes she’s grinding the hot and slippery apex of her parted thighs against the hard muscle of his flank when she’s painfully, acutely aware she’s about to reach a peak she has yet to climb.

It’s too late to stop, and she grabs his wrist and bicep, pushes her face between his shoulder blades, his slow, deep heartbeat echoing in her.

**8.**

“Stay still.” She says this to yet another boy who won’t listen. Either they laugh at her or try but fail, too ticklish, not serious about the kissing game.

At first she tries to find someone who reminds her of him. Tall and broad humans aren’t in a short supply, but that’s not enough, even in the dark, the only time she has the courage to approach them. She tries the opposite, thinking it might do no good to compare: kisses young lively boys and girls, who feel and taste good, but when it comes to turning that into other kinds of enjoyment, she never can.

**9.**

It’s ridiculous to think anyone would compare, she muses, as she breaks into the cave after a long while again, greets him and makes her rounds. Perhaps it’s also ridiculous to make herself up for this, but she feels like it, and to wear a perfume, as if he could see and smell her. She strips down except for a ring she got from Pyria: an heirloom, a proof of where she has come from.

“I have slain the dragon,” she says, gazing at his ever resting face and playing with the light hair around his nipple. “I have climbed the tower.” She strokes his cheek.

There’s no need for modesty this time. Mareth cuddles up to his side, arranging his arm so it’s easy to look down his chest while she takes his pliant manhood in her hand and gently strokes him. He doesn’t react -- or not like she expected: she could swear the steady rhythm of his heart is faster, nearly matching the speed of hers. Could swear his chest rises just as quick.

His hair down there is coarser than hers but just as black as the few curls she now has. She lets go of his shaft to touch elsewhere, fingers weighing, tracing, feeling each soft spot, the dips between muscles, the curve of thigh and back up, enjoying his soft flesh.

Perhaps that is the problem, she thinks, as she sits astride his chest, now facing his feet, bending down. She can almost swallow him whole, careful not to bite or scratch. His skin is dry but her mouth had watered the moment she thought of this. His scent is stronger, more alive, the tender skin sliding over his flesh when she rubs harder with her tongue. She has all the time in the world to explore. It never was like this with anyone else.

When she finally sits up, a little dizzy, there's a slippery pool between her legs on his chest. Aching, she changes positions so she can look down at his face. She feels a pulsing when she presses her fingers on his neck; perhaps it is the blood rushing in her, but the skin around his nipples is raised, his cheeks warmer.

“If you were awake,” she says, rocking her hips, the stimulation lacking, but enough to demonstrate, “you could kiss me here.”

**10.**

The cold makes her nipples painfully hard, but she strips quickly. She doesn’t want to waste time. She’ll warm up soon enough. She kisses away the diamond-dusting of frost from his face. It’s summer outside, and she feels overheated, her dreams nothing but sensations, longing for skin on skin. No use but to trek here again.

She intends to fulfil one dream. Last time, he certainly stirred under her hands. She likes his flesh yielding, but it still made her blush and she has been thinking of it. What it would take. She knows some things now. She knows his body. What makes him twitch, what makes the magic sparkle.

Mareth doesn’t even need to try to get herself wet. It’s enough rubbing against his still soft member, dropping a few kisses on his shoulder.

“You’ll like this. I know you do,” she whispers as she works fingers into herself, coating them. He makes her so slick, it drips down her thighs and makes her hair curl, there’s plenty for both of them.

She isn’t wrong. If anything, he exceeds her expectations. Two slender fingers knuckle-deep inside him, and his blood is flowing, and when she crooks the fingers, it’s like the magic caresses her too deep inside. In the circle of her other hand, his flesh hardens -- she can’t hold back, licking greedily up, exhilarated to find him wet all on his own. The pulse and heat under her lips, the tightening of his muscles around her moving fingers, she grinds desperately against anything, his calf, feeling like a dog in heat, the furthest thing from a princess.

But this must be the closest to a true love’s kiss she’s ever given him. Scrambling up wildly, knowing he will release soon, she manages to rub the tip of his hard member against her own pulsing sex, her mouth not quite reaching his mouth in time before his seed bursts between their bodies.

**11.**

His taste is always bitter the first time, the juices thick and milky, but she can spend the whole night getting him off if she wants until it is sweet and clear. Unless her arms tire. She already aches all over. If only she could stay longer than one night. She imagines waking up next to him somewhere warmer, somewhere outside. In a shared bed, not just cold stone covered with a few blankets.

She touches him lazily again, sucking a quickly-fading mark into a soft spot on his chest. She thinks of the letters her mom used to read out loud when Mareth was a child. News about battles that happened before she was born, not interesting to her then, but in-between them, lines about his travels, all the places he’d been. How the Silver River glints in the moonlight. The waking forests around Storlock in spring. The view from the highest of the Dragon’s Teeth.

She’s seen those places now. But not with him.

His flesh is full under her hand again, and she settles astride him, thighs sweetly sore from this position already, skin sticky but still yearning. The magic like molasses in her veins, like thick air in her lungs. She loves this the most: rubbing her most sensitive spot against his hardness, holding him gently down so she feels the little bursts of fluid, the thing she was made of, looking at his face. She now sees it all. His reactions are nearly invisible, but her eyes know where to look.

There’s nothing here she can take with her, if she doesn’t want to steal his clothes or ancient Druid talismans. She can carry some of his seed inside her, but not long. She could get with a child now, but she’s taking her herbs.

He’d decorated some of his letters with drawings of vines, green inky leaves, a protective border around the words. Perhaps she could carry those with her, a tattoo. She has memorized the pictures, like everything else. Yeah, she could -- she presses her hips down harder, a circle, losing track of that thought and everything else.

She could swear his fingertips brush her sweaty skin as she lets herself melt down against him, listening to his heart.

**12.**

It doesn’t end like Mareth thought it would.

She knew it had to, no matter how hard she wanted it to continue. Perhaps -- and this was the biggest of dreams -- he’d wake. It might ruin everything, but it would also prove her love true. Or he might not, and she’d simply want to stop. Admit her mother was right: that this was a grave, and she disturbed its peace.

She did not expect this, the flesh coming alive under and inside her, the heat of her father’s mouth opening up for her. His grip on her waist is so strong it makes her cry out and push her hips down as he suddenly matches her rhythm, fucking into her heat. She kisses him, again, again, before forcing herself to sit up to hear the words falling from his mouth.

It’s in the Druid language of old, a spell, maybe, his voice rough from years of rest. He doesn’t open his eyes, not even when she digs her nails in his skin, trying to hold herself back from coming, but in vain. It’s all too much, the red on his cheeks, his shining lips and straining neck. His muscles shifting under golden skin. His fingers squeezing back. She doesn’t have to do anything but to hold on, let him take care of her until she’s a shivering mess, pushed over the edge of pleasure again and again.

She’s beyond exhausted when they finally untangle. After a few moments of swallowing hot air, filled with their scent, she dares glance at his face.

Allanon looks peaceful. Claimed by sleep again.

Mareth lingers in the heat as long as she can. The magic trickles slowly out of her, a fog dissipating. The connection between them stays, but she knows there are only a couple of hours left. She will clean him up and replace the sword. The damp air will turn to frost. His skin will pale. He might open his eyes -- 

but she has thought that for years now.

For the last time, she will kiss him goodbye. She’ll make her way down to the valley and follow the river. It has been a sweet dream, but it’s time for her to wake up.


End file.
